JVC DLA-X95R Projector Review

February 16, 2013 - Art Feierman

We adjust the general controls and perform a grayscale calibration of the DLA-X95R projector. Regular readers know I contract with Mike to our projector calibrations, including this JVC DLA-X95 home theater projector. In conjunction with the major site redesign Projector Reviews, has just started on, we will have a subscriber area, which we wish to populate with many things, primarily new content we haven’t offered before. One of our extra value for our subscribers will be to provide greater calibration detail. Starting a few months ago, all the $1500+ projectors (and some costing less) have the same level calibration such as this JVC X95R projector just received, including calibration of individual colors using the CMS.

The CMS calibration of those primary and secondary colors, along with CIE charts and additional data will be presented in that new section when it launches in May, including the info on this JVC X95 projector. Stay tuned.

Below we provide for this DLA-X95, the same of calibration and settings information as we have published in past projector reviews.

JVC DLA-X95R Color Temperature

Lumen Output and Color Temp at 100 IRE (mid zoom):

Cinema

550 @ 6764, 351 @ 7066 in default Low lamp mode

Film

514 @ 5933

Natural

685 @ 6921

Stage

748 @ 8273

Animation

757 @ 8904

3D

748 @ 8300

THX

676 @ 6979

User 1-5

685 @ 6866

Out of the Box Measurements:

Essentially all the User modes, and several of the others, are the same, but for some variations in which color temp is selected.

Color Temp over IRE Range, Best mode (Pre calibration):

30 IRE

6383

50 IRE

6618

80 IRE

6668

100 IRE

6764

Cinema (User and THX are very similar)

JVC DLA-X95R Basic Settings

Settings for measurements (default values are in parenthesis):

THX

Cinema

Film

Natural

Stage

Animation

3D

User 1-5

Contrast = (0)

5

-1

-10

-2

-2

-5

-2

-2

Brightness = (0)

3

1

3

-2

-2

-2

-2

-2

Color Sat. = (0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

Tint = (0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

(0)

Color Temp =

(6500)

(Xenon2)

(Xenon1)

(6500)

(7500)

(8000)

(7500)

(6500)

Gamma =

(THX)

(A)

(Film)

(Normal)

(D)

(C)

(A 3D)

(Normal)

Color Profile

THX

Cinema1

Film1

Video

Stage

Anime1

3D Cine

Video

In addition to calibrating Red, Green and Blue for a correct grayscale balance (6500K), there are a number of other settings that come into play. Typically Contrast and Brightness (white balance and black balance), need to be done first. Color saturation and gamma also need adjustment.

All other settings at default. Color Profiles are not in parens but are the defaults.

Unlike the less lower cost JVC projectors, the X35 and X55R, the DLA-X95R (and the X75R) have a THX mode. These two projectors also have a number of different Color Profiles that can be selected (in addition to the Modes), shown above.

No specific “brighest mode” was “created” due to Stage (with Color Temp set for 7500), being less than 100 lumens brighter than a calibrated “Best”. Short translation. Use either the calibrated mode, or when you want a little brighter, Stage, although lowering the color temp to 7000 is a little nicer than 7500.

Mike’s comments (same as on the Performance page): Grayscale Calibration

Grayscale calibrated pretty well, with an average Delta E of only 1.3. The RGB balance was also pretty good, other than a spike in Red at 20 IRE. Adjusting Gain has a greater effect on the total IRE range than it should, whereas Offset has less of an effect on upper IREs. So, if you adjust Gain, then compensate for the adjusted gain effect with Offset, it works out pretty good. As Animation (the brightest mode) is only 81 lumens more than THX mode, there’s no need for a quick cal of a “bright” mode.

Typical of JVC projectors, gamma was too low in any of the presets (Normal was the high with an average gamma of 2.14), so I used the custom gamma. The custom gamma started with the Normal preset, but I dropped the numbers -15 from 5 to 75%, -10 at 80% and -5 at 90 and 95%. This results in a pretty smooth gamma with an average of 2.20. Luminance tracking is quite good as well.

The standard color gamut is decent and doesn’t have the oversaturated green that prior models had, but the secondaries are all off a little in hue (see CIE charts). Fortunately, the CMS works quite well and I was able to dial in the colors pretty well. Overall, colors look very good.

A reader “Rob I” contacted me with a valid point. We report and mention in the review that after the calibration, 20 IRE and below were strong on red. (Not too bad, still over 6200K). Rob points out that when Mike was calibrating the gamma, he could have used the ability to make separate gamma adjustments respectively to R, G, and B. Doing that, he says will allow one to calibrate out that extra red. Nice. Our thanks to Rob, for sharing good info.